“You’ve got it, too?” I asked Bridget.
“It’s useful,” she said, “although it can also be dangerous. Sometimes it takes me to what I need, whether I’m consciously aware that I need it or only subconsciously. But other times it can lead me into big trouble.”
“Like the tiger,” said Sparky.
“No, the tiger was cool. I was thinking of the bomb factory,” Bridget said as she inserted cartridges into a spare magazine.
“Psychic magnetism led you to a tiger?”
“Hey,” Sparky said, “I like that—‘psychic magnetism.’ Says it better than either of the others.”
Again I asked, “Psychic magnetism led you to a tiger?”
She said, “We were taking a little vacation in Georgia—”
“It was peach season. I love their peaches,” Sparky said.
“—and some idiot had illegally bought a tiger cub for a pet. It quickly got big—”
“Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach jam—”
“—and it got away. Scary news story. And, well, I’ve—”
“Peach custard, peach tarts, anything peach.”
“—always been fascinated with tigers—”
“My Jeanette was from Georgia, and she was a real peach.”
“—but I didn’t know the tiger was what I was being drawn to.”
Having exhausted the subject of peaches, Sparky said, “We’re driving along with woods on both sides, and Bridget insists that I pull over. I thought she was car sick.”
Bridget said, “I’ve never been car sick.”
“There’s always a first time. So I pull over, and she springs out of the car and takes off into the woods.”
“It was an extremely powerful attraction. I couldn’t resist.”
“So I ran after her, and when I found her, she had her back to a tree, and the tiger was growling at her, and the only weapon I had was a four-inch rip blade.”
“No melodrama now. Alphonse wasn’t growling, he was purring.”
“He gave me the evil eye,” Sparky said.
“Maybe you deserved it, waving that knife around.”
“I still say it could have turned out worse.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Could have.”
“Didn’t.”
“I’d have fought him if I had to.”
“I know you would have, Sparky. You’re a valiant warrior.”
They fell silent, and I waited, but finally I asked her, “So then what happened?”
“You mean with Alphonse?”
“What else would I mean?”
“Well, we walked him out of the woods, coaxed him into the back seat of the car, and drove him to the nearest animal shelter.”
I said, “Okay, come on—what’re you leaving out?”
“Leaving out? Nothing. Alphonse was domesticated.”
“Semi-domesticated,” Sparky said. “No tiger is ever totally cured of its wildness.”
Bridget made a dismissive noise. “Alphonse was about as wild as that tiger who sells breakfast cereal. What’s his name?”
“Tony,” I said.
“I was big into Frosted Flakes in those days,” she said.
“Those days? When did this Alphonse thing happen?”
“About ten years ago. I was nine.”
Sparky said, “Actually, we did leave out one detail about Alphonse. The frozen custard.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Bridget said. “On the way to the animal shelter we passed a Dairy Queen, and I just knew Alphonse would enjoy that, so we stopped.”
“He enjoyed three big cones,” Sparky said. “I was sure he was going to throw it all up.”
“Grandpa has this fear of having to clean up after someone gets car sick.”
“I’d rather just trash the car and get a new one.”
She reached out to pat his shoulder. “But it’s an unnatural fear, since it’s nothing that ever happened to you, dear.”
I managed to rewind the conversation. “You already had psychic magnetism at nine?”
To her grandfather, she said, “When did it start with me?”
“The magnetism when you were seven, almost eight. The thing with animals, I first noticed when you were about four.”
I remembered what they’d said about the deer looking in their windows, the squirrels that ate from their hands, and the fox named Cary Grant that kept them company by curling up on a rocking chair on their back porch.